


Drowning in Guilt

by NorroenDyrd



Series: Should Never Have Existed [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Gen, Married Couple, Non-Canon Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Poetic, Pre-Canon, Symbolism, Tevinter Culture and Customs, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-14 03:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14127417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Keeping a terrible secret from a person you are close to is akin to drowning - as Magister Alexius finds out twice in his life. First, when his wife comes forward with a revelation that she was the one who killed his father, after the latter's attempts to assassinate their son Felix for not having enough magic to be the perfect Altus. And then, years later, when he himself has to explain to his new unlikely friend Nadia Trevelyan that she was supposed to become the Herald of Andraste; that the mysterious Mark upon Alexius' hand was to have been hers, and the only reason she is not the one sealing Rifts is some time magic gone awry.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I initially wanted to post this as a single story, but had to take a break due to personal reasons. So here is the first chapter so far: a conversation between Alexius and his wife where she confesses to killing his father. The second chapter will be dedicated to Alexius making a confession of his own, to the (former) Herald Trevelyan that he stripped of her status by travelling back in time and accidentally becoming branded with the Anchor instead.

The crypt looks as if it were plunged underwater - into the dark, icy ocean that supposedly stretches out all the way south, towards horizons unknown.  
  
The scarce wall-mounted lamps are powered by mage fire. An undying cold flame that colours everything beneath these massive stone vaults into various shades of blue, from the pale splashes that streak down the sides of the urns nearest to the light sources, to the inky swirls that brew within the niches along the walls, with the chiseled, haughtily indifferent visages of age-old statues peering through these swirls like faces of drowned men.  
  
He shudders as he moves slowly from lantern to lantern - the only human figure not carved out of blue-tinted marble, in robes that flow freely with his motions, rather than fall in heavy, frozen folds of polished stone, with the traditional sculptured serpents crawling up them from hem to sleeve, forever stuck in the same coiling position. His features bear some resemblance to the drowned statues: the same curved nose, thin lips, rather heavy jaw. This is his family crypt, and whenever he turns, wading through the sea-like shadows, he finds his ancestors peering down at him with empty, milky eyes. A whole pleiade of them, right down to the very first to bear the name Alexius; a mystical Dreamer from an age long gone.  
  
He comes to a final halt when he reaches one particular burial urn, one placed on a pedestal that has not yet nestled into a fuzzy, silvery blanket of dust. His eyes, squinting in the hazy light, peer at the name carved into the stone, and his mouth twitches.  
  
'To think that I loved you, once,' he says quietly, appearing to address the shadow that lurches ahead of him across the urn.  
  
His own shadow, of course: there is a lantern nearby, somewhere behind him... But to him, it must seem to be the shadow of the man whose ashes rest within this heavy stone vessel; the man whose name the stone bears like a recent wound.  
  
'Father...' he goes on, in a hoarse stifled voice, the crypt's dust scraping at his lungs. Dust - and something else. Something that travels up his throat, heavy and smothering, and stings his eyes.  
  
'Why could you not love me back? Why could you not love my family? Your own grandchild?'  
  
He draws a shaky sigh - which is overlaid by the ringing sound of footsteps: another person descending into the crypt. Making a dive into its blue waters.  
  
He starts at first, his musings having been cut into so abruptly - but no sooner do his shoulders fly up into a jumpy, jerking motion, than they settle down again, his stance relaxing. He knows this gait; he knows it so intimately that his lips glide into a smile by sheer instinct. And his smile turns broader the louder the footfalls grow - quite despite all the sombre thoughts he has been having.  
  
'I was meaning to return to the manor in a couple of minutes,' he says in a hushed tone, turning towards the woman that has joined him. 'I haven't forgotten about Felix's bedtime shadow play! It's just that...'  
  
He swallows up the end of the sentence, while his eyebrows crawl up in bewilderment at the sight of the woman's face, set into an unreadable mask between the strands of her loosened, slightly frizzy hair, much like the faces of the Alexius ancestors.  
  
'Is... Is something wrong?'  
  
She wrings her hands as he asks his question, in a hasty, breathless tone, reaching forward to her impulsively and then drawing his hand back, unsure what to make of her expression.  
  
'I... I have to talk to you,' she begins, inhaling deeply - and not a moment later, cracks begin to run both through her voice and her countenance.  
  
'I know this is hardly the best time or place, but... Oh, Renny, I can't hold back any longer! Keeping something like this from you - it... it feels like drowning'.  
  
She staggers back, leaning against another urn and then jolting away.  
  
'Your father's death... it... it was my doing,' she blurts out, lowering her head and digging her fingers into her hair.  
  
'I made it look like an accident, but... I was the one who pushed him... into that damned pool... I...'  
  
Her hand now flits towards her neck, spots of a flush blooming heavily under her fingertips.  
  
'I wish I could say that I had not meant it... That we fought... that he provoked me... that I did not know what I was thinking... But... that would be a lie...'  
  
She bites into her lips till she breaks skin, shutting her eyes and inhaling again.  
  
'I came to his villa with the full intention not to leave him alive. I lured his servants away so that we'd be alone by the poolside. I used a frost spell on the floor to make sure he fell when I pushed. My head was clear. My hands were steady. I...'  
  
She throws her lids wide open and looks up at him, her face a mask again. Only her eyes betray her, enormous and black and glimmering in the mage light.  
  
'I killed your father, Renny... He tried to kill our baby; his assassins almost killed you; and I had to... to make him stop'.  
  
That last word, 'stop', comes out of her mouth with a faint, rustling breath, like a dead leaf carried by a gust of wind. It circles, slowly, mournfully, and then touches down upon the sea of icy silence, and sets off ripples of mounting tension, which spread and swell and nauseate, until neither of the two people huddling in the darkness of the crypt can bear it any longer.  
  
The woman sags down, as if something within her has been punctured, and the man, her 'Renny', bluish pale and numb, still finds it in him to wrap his arms around her.  
  
'He... may have been my father long ago...' he whispers, slanting his eyes to look at the urn again. 'When his... his world was the only thing I knew. But then... Then I built a word of my own. With you, Lili. With our baby. And he... he would not accept that...'  
  
He clutches her tighter, gazing past her jerking shoulder - and his voice suddenly grows firm and loud, and the words flow out with such ease as if he has been saying them within his heart for a long time now.  
  
'He drew up a vision of me long ago - perhaps on the day I was born. A make-belief ideal. A perfect magister, a perfect scholar, the father of a perfect scion. And so long as the real me matched that ideal, I was safe. I was welcomed. I was boasted about. But then reality diverged from his plans for me - for us; for Felix - and he would not stand for it. We all became worthless to him. Our happiness became immaterial - because it was not the happiness he was seeing inside his head. He was ready to kill Felix, to kill you if you did not produce the "right" child - with no qualms. Because you have always been just a means to an end. A tool for building the perfect Alexius future. As have I. You don't think that assassin of his stood down when I threw myself between him and Felix because his master loves me so much? No. It's because I could still be useful as a tool'.  
  
He chuckles bitterly to himself, shaking his head.  
  
'That's why I lashed out at Halward when he raved over his little Dorian's successes. He wrote it off to jealousy, to rival houses being rival houses - but I... I saw a reflection of my... of that monster in him, and it angered and frightened me'.  
  
The woman frowns.  
  
'You... You think your father a monster? What of me? Could I ever... hope for forgiveness?'  
  
'It's complicated,' he admits, with one hand supporting the back of her head and the other resting on his chest.  
  
'I will still miss him. I can't help missing him. But... I won't hate you for doing what you had to. Like I said... The moment he raised his hand against you and Felix... He stopped truly being my father'.  
  
He flinches and moves his hand to rub at his temples, as if they have been pierced by a headache.  
  
'Bloody mess, this whole thing...'  
  
With a prolonged, mournful sigh, he straightens up and steers her away from the urns and up the passageway towards the crypt's entrance.  
  
'I love you, Lili,' he tells her sincerely as they walk under the unblinking scrutiny of the ancestors.  
  
'And once, I loved the man who was supposed to be a father to me. He was the one who betrayed me, not you...'  
  
He forces his lips into a quivering smile.  
  
'Let us... Let us not sink into this mire, all right? Let us keep building our life, our world. A future that was not planned for us. I...'  
  
He clenches the fingers of the hand that is not supporting his Lili's waist, mustering determination to finish.  
  
'I may need some time alone, but I swear to you, I shall not care for you any less after today. Thank you for being truthful. I hope... I hope you do not feel like drowning any longer'.  
  
And indeed, when they both exit the crypt and head back to the manor house, where their little son is eagerly awaiting the dance of brightly coloured, slightly cloudy conjured images to illustrate a bedtime story - they both look like they have emerged from beneath the waves of the frothing sea, a split second before they completely ran out of air.


	2. Chapter 2

The forest looks as if it were plunged underwater - into a warm, sun-kissed lagoon tucked away at the foot of soaring, jungle-capped cliffs somewhere up north. Where the water is clear as tinted glass, and streaked with ribbons of light - and then densens abruptly to inscrutable azure depths, where bizarre, hungry creatures lurk, all eyes and teeth and with no name ascribed to them by scholars.  
  
And like the hidden corners of these lagoons, the thicket if the forest, away from the pretty clearings where the sunlight rains down in dappled splashes through the swaying green and gold canopy, has become home to otherworldly brings, pressing against the parts of the Veil where it has been worn down almost into nothing. Ready to jump out and feast.  
  
Their hunger is seldom sated, however. For hardly do they dive into the waves of greenish, headily herb-scented forest air, when their spiky ribcages are shattered by an explosive shot of a crossbow; and their wriggling mismatched limbs, lopped off by a sweeping sword strike; and their bulging, senseless eyes, melted in their sockets by a surge of flame, erupting in twin jets from two mage staves and then pouring into a single powerful charge.  
  
The Inquisition is upon them: weapons bared to defend the weak, shields raised to keep the darkness at bay. And at the head of the procession of its agents, which scouts the green-flooded woodland paths in search of feral demons and torn gaps in the Veil, is the very same man that submerged himself into the icy crypt. The same man - but at least two decades older. With his black hair shaved down to short, hard bristles peppered with grey; and with his skin eaten through by the web-like markings of age and pain and weariness, and darkened to a bruised, unhealthy, purplish brown underneath his eyes.  
  
He leads the charge, in a whirlwind of flapping leather coat tails and at least half a dozen trailing scarves. Wielding his staff like a natural, seamless extension of his arm, he weaves tapestries of fire and lightning in the air all around him; and finally, he puts to rest the Rifts, those spitting acidic whirlpools that disrupt the Veil - with a bold, commanding wave of his hand, which is marked by a blazing green scar.  
  
And right now, on this golden afternoon in the heart of the forest depths, he has just finished one of his many assaults on the Rifts and the creatures that dwell within. With the Veil stitched up, and the demons reduced to squelching puddles of yellow-green slime - which trickle off the ferns and the grass blades, burning charred holes in their wake - the Inquisition teammates have taken to setting up camp. A secluded little space in the underwater shade of the towering pines, to catch a breath before a new trek through the wilds.  
  
He helps the others at first, pulling the tent roping taut with small charges of telekinesis - but once the canvas shelter is all pitched up, he quietly withdraws into the background and, while his companions bicker over who will go gather firewood, climbs a nearby boulder, dark with soft, spongy moss and shaped rather like the head of some gigantic, slumbering creature. A bear perhaps - those beasts are certainly one of the... prominent symbols of these woodlands.  
  
Putting his foot down on the mossy bear's overhanging brow ridge, he gazes out past the clearing, into the waves of green darkness that lap against the tree trunks. Waiting. Growing more and more restless with every moment - which is betrayed by the grasping motions of his hands, pulling forcibly at his scarves, shifting them, loosening them, as though it were hard for him to breathe. As though he were drowning.  
  
And at long last, she appears, breaking the forest murk like a diver breaks the surface of the sea. The person he has been waiting for. A young woman, no older than twenty, with a broad-shouldered, brawny built, jutting cheekbones and fir-coloured eyes, and a gnarled burn mark crinkling the skin on the left side of her face.   
  
She lifts her hand in greeting when she sees the forlorn sentinel on the boulder.  
  
'Hey, if it isn't my sort-of uncle!' she calls to him. 'Right on the spot where we were supposed to meet! You folks been having fun while I was off ram-shooting?'  
  
He grimaces in pain as she approaches - as if the mix of herbal scents in the air has turned to poison, and he has to breathe it in, with each of the frequent, shallow rises and falls of his chest accompanied by a barely audible groan. Still, he scrapes together enough energy to teleport himself to the base of the boulder - a white and blue comet shooting through the greenery - and to reappear face to face with the woman, his haggard features frozen into a set, stern look.  
  
'I have to talk to you,' he says bluntly. 'Before you rush up to the camp and start cracking jokes with Tethras'.  
  
She cocks her head, bird-like, seeming thoroughly puzzled.  
  
'Are you feeling all right?' she asks. 'You are wheezing like a Templar in full armour on a hot grill'.  
  
He smiles flatly at the joke and then persists.  
  
'Perhaps I am. You see, keeping something like this a secret... It feels...'  
  
His eyes widen momentarily, pupils shrinking, and he finishes the sentence mechanically, echoing a recollection from many years ago.   
  
'...It feels like drowning'.  
  
'Whoah, whoah!' she throws up her arms to slow him down. 'Keeping something like what a secret?'  
  
He does not give her a reply until he leads her away from the tents, into what - in a way - is also a bit of a tent, except formed by the heavy, drooping branches of an old fir tree.  
  
'This,' he says simply when they edge close to the trunk, and the fir's fuzzy green paws lock together behind them.  
  
The branches block out most of the sunlight, and when he stretches out the hand with the Mark, its green flare strengthens the impression of them being underwater.  
  
'It was to have been yours,' he explains, a tremour in his voice.  
  
'You were to have been... the one. The survivor. The mystical hero from the Fade. The demon slayer, the healer of Rifts. And as the...'  
  
He rolls up his eyes.  
  
'As the powers that be did not wish for Rifts to be healed, for certain plans to be thwarted... I was given the task to stop you. At any cost'.  
  
He balls his Marked hand into a fist, veins bulging through his skin.  
  
'And I... I accepted the task. I was ready to trap you, to kill you, to keep you from ever being born... All for the sake of the reward I was promised'.  
  
He lifts his fist to his forehead, shutting his eyes tight to that they almost vanish amid the stark lines of agony.  
  
'A cure for my son...'  
  
Then, with a shuddering breath, he lets his arm drop listlessly by his side, his eyes now open.  
  
'My magic backfired, however. You still live, and your Mark has passed on to me'.  
  
She squishes up her face, not too ready to believe him.  
  
'If you tried to kill me... How come I don't remember anything? How come I don't remember having the Mark?'  
  
'Time magic,' he responds. 'When I tried to explain the particulars to the Inquisition advisors, they thought me either delirious or deliberately trying to confuse them. But that is what happened. This Mark... this ability to get rid of tears in the Veil... It was your destiny. And I altered it. I took it from you. Just like I tried to take your life. And worst of all...'  
  
He almost sobs in frustration, kicking up a little fountain of dried-up fallen fir needles with the tip of his boot.  
  
'I lost the amulet that allowed me to do... what I did. The result of years' worth of experiments, conducted by my apprentice and I, melted down somewhere in that damn crater! I have deprived you of the Mark, and I can't even reverse the timeline... And the longer I blunder about... like this, the more real this world becomes!'  
  
'But it is real, this world - and in it, you saved my life!' she exclaims, grabbing him by the wrist and giving his hand a slight shake. 'That, I do remember! We were in the Fade, both of us; I got scarred by the Conclave explosion - and you healed me! And then, we ran from those spider things together!'  
  
'Yes,' he hurries to cut in, 'But that was after...'  
  
'Look,' she says, gathering herself up and standing on tiptoe, as if to emphasize the loftiness of what she is about to say.   
  
'You've given me a whole lot to think about... If you opened up my head right now, it would be a bloody mess. But...'  
  
She drops back to her heels again, and weaves her fingers together over her heart - like a flood gate for the words that follow, unleashed the moment she moves her hands away.  
  
'You know how my husband... Maxwell... was killed by a Templar, just a few days after we escaped from our fallen Circle and decided to get hitched? Well, for a bit after that... I hated the Templars. Really hated them. All of them. Just a glance at that armour was like a red rag to an Antivan bull. And then... Then I started noticing some of them helping refugees. Fighting off marauders. Banding together with runaway mages, even - cause they were as happy to be free of the Circles as we were. And I figured... If half my heart still raged over Maxwell, and the other half was kind of... warming up to those Templars who are actually trying to make up for... the things that the Chantry had been making them do to us... I would feel much better following that second half. And it's the same with you, really'.  
  
She smiles at the blank astonishment in his gaze and goes on, frank and bold and bright-eyed with ever blooming admiration.  
  
'You may have been a... a bad guy at some point. But look at you now! Look at all you've done here in the Hinterlands! I mean...'  
  
Her smile flashes wider.  
  
'When I was on my way back from hunting mutton for the Crossroads folks, I heard all sorts of awed whispers about you! How you rescued a farmer here, shut off a Rift there, and made all those orders to fix roads and things! I have no idea what kind of... Herald I was in that other timeline of yours - but right here, right now, you are a bloody fantastic one. You know how to lead; you don't loiter about when there are... problems to sort out... Me, though...'  
  
The light in her eyes is snuffed out, and she curls her lips bitterly.  
  
'I am just a clueless Circle kid trying to make herself useful. I don't have what you have; no experience, no fancy Tevinter magic... I didn't even have a last name before I hooked up with Maxwell. They called me Nadia at the Chantry orphanage. An Antivan Sister's idea. Comes from their word for nobody'.  
  
She wants to go on talking, but he raises his hand to silence her, like a teacher disciplining a student that keep spouting nonsense.  
  
'That's what my... masters called you. That's what I called you. A nobody, an upstart... a mistake. But this is not who you are. Now that we are on the same side, I can see it plainly'.  
  
Now it is her turn to gasp raggedly for breath, overwhelmed with astonishment, and his turn to smile.  
  
'I must be getting old and sentimental,' he says, resting his hand on her shoulder. 'Or cracking under the strain of no news about my son'.  
  
'Yeah, better stop with this,' she scoffs slightly - not recoiling from his touch, though. 'Mushy stuff is overrated'.  
  
'Everyone says that at your age,' he points out - which earns him a playful shove into the forearm and a loud 'Shut up, Uncle!', intermingled with a bout of laughter that she tries and fails to contain.  
  
And when they return to the campsite, where the fire has finally been built, and the trio of Inquisition agents has settled down around the smoking stack of twigs, the dwarven writer reenacting some scene with a bun and a sausage - they both look like they have emerged from beneath the waves of the frothing sea, a split second before they completely ran out of air.


End file.
